On Quixotic Climate, we revel in Sissyphysian tasks and in taking the sucker's payoff because we like it. This blog serves as a permanent reservoir for those wasted hours I spends debunking fascist "news" posts about climate change and going into extreme detail about minutiae of carbon accounting that no one else would be stupid enough to worry about.
Quixotic Climate was shopping for a new car at a Toyota delearship in his hometown. The topic is the comparative cost savings of a Toyota Prius and a Toyota Highlander Hybrid.
Me: "I like the Prius, but what if we want to carry 7 passengers. Will you show me the Highlander Hybrid? It seems like the most fuel efficient 7-passenger vehicle on the market."
Toyota Sales Manager: "I'll show it to you, but I would highly recommend against buying it. You'll never make back the extra money you spend."
Me: "Well, actually, bigger cars burn so much more fuel that you save more from the bigger hybrids than a small one like a Prius. It's very deceptive the way EPA shows fuel economy on a window sticker, since the percentage improvement on a Highlander over a conventional Highlander is similar to the percentage improvement of a Prius over a conventional Corolla. Because a big car uses so much more fuel, the savings are actually greater on the Highlander."
Toyota Sales Manager: "Actually, that's not true. I have computer software inside that will calculate it for you."
Me: "I've done the calculations myself and I know I'm correct." [. . . and whatever happened to the customer always being right?? Even if I had been wrong, the guy should have shut up. He had already irked me when he put down competitors' cars in an obnoxious way, but now the deal was sealed. To his credit, that guy sensed how our personalities did not match and ceased working with me. I was impressed with his self awareness there.]
So, who was right? The numbers are below. Basically, if you get a comparably equipped base model of a Highlander with the 3.5 L V6 + AWD, it's $32,145. If you get the most basic Highlander Hybrid (3.5 L V6 + AWD), it costs $37,490. It takes 8.4 years to pay back the extra cost if gas is 3.00 per gallon. With a Prius, it takes 10.1 years versus a comparable Corolla.
In their favor, it is difficult to find the base Highlander, and they probably were comparing the Highlander Hybrid to the most stripped down 2wd, 2.4 L 4-cylinder Highlander, which is not a fair comparison since they don't sell the Highlander Hybrid with a 2.4 L or 2wd. That's Toyota's choice. They were also probably thinking that if an individual wants to minimize fuel use, getting the fuel-sipping Prius would be better. They're right about that. However, sometimes a 7-passenger vehicle is necessary. They have the best one on their lot and they don't understand it well enough to sell it. Toyota's Marketing department gets an F there.
It's a sad thing when the people selling the hybrids can't understand the basic calculations or importance of the vehicles they're selling. The Sales manager gave me erroneous information that would lead me to just buy the base model, emit 2.2 extra tonnes of CO2 per year, and have a cost profile that was basically break-even, paying off in 7 years. Most of that would be cleared up if they would just start listing fuel economy in the more logical way of liters used per kilometer driven (use of metric system emphasized). That change is supposed to be on the way.
In the next post, I'll talk about diesels versus hybrids in terms of money saved and CO2 emissions avoided.
Quixotic Climate was shopping for a new car at a Toyota delearship in his hometown. The topic is the comparative cost savings of a Toyota Prius and a Toyota Highlander Hybrid.
Me: "I like the Prius, but what if we want to carry 7 passengers. Will you show me the Highlander Hybrid? It seems like the most fuel efficient 7-passenger vehicle on the market."
Toyota Sales Manager: "I'll show it to you, but I would highly recommend against buying it. You'll never make back the extra money you spend."
Me: "Well, actually, bigger cars burn so much more fuel that you save more from the bigger hybrids than a small one like a Prius. It's very deceptive the way EPA shows fuel economy on a window sticker, since the percentage improvement on a Highlander over a conventional Highlander is similar to the percentage improvement of a Prius over a conventional Corolla. Because a big car uses so much more fuel, the savings are actually greater on the Highlander."
Toyota Sales Manager: "Actually, that's not true. I have computer software inside that will calculate it for you."
Me: "I've done the calculations myself and I know I'm correct." [. . . and whatever happened to the customer always being right?? Even if I had been wrong, the guy should have shut up. He had already irked me when he put down competitors' cars in an obnoxious way, but now the deal was sealed. To his credit, that guy sensed how our personalities did not match and ceased working with me. I was impressed with his self awareness there.]
So, who was right? The numbers are below. Basically, if you get a comparably equipped base model of a Highlander with the 3.5 L V6 + AWD, it's $32,145. If you get the most basic Highlander Hybrid (3.5 L V6 + AWD), it costs $37,490. It takes 8.4 years to pay back the extra cost if gas is 3.00 per gallon. With a Prius, it takes 10.1 years versus a comparable Corolla.
In their favor, it is difficult to find the base Highlander, and they probably were comparing the Highlander Hybrid to the most stripped down 2wd, 2.4 L 4-cylinder Highlander, which is not a fair comparison since they don't sell the Highlander Hybrid with a 2.4 L or 2wd. That's Toyota's choice. They were also probably thinking that if an individual wants to minimize fuel use, getting the fuel-sipping Prius would be better. They're right about that. However, sometimes a 7-passenger vehicle is necessary. They have the best one on their lot and they don't understand it well enough to sell it. Toyota's Marketing department gets an F there.
It's a sad thing when the people selling the hybrids can't understand the basic calculations or importance of the vehicles they're selling. The Sales manager gave me erroneous information that would lead me to just buy the base model, emit 2.2 extra tonnes of CO2 per year, and have a cost profile that was basically break-even, paying off in 7 years. Most of that would be cleared up if they would just start listing fuel economy in the more logical way of liters used per kilometer driven (use of metric system emphasized). That change is supposed to be on the way.
In the next post, I'll talk about diesels versus hybrids in terms of money saved and CO2 emissions avoided.
| Car | MPG | Miles driven | Gallons | Cost | Savings($/yr) | CarPrice | Payoff Time | CO2 (KG/G) | YearlyOutput | CO2 Saved | |||||||
| Prius | 50 | 15000 | 300 | 900 | 600 | 21650 | 10.1 | 8.8 | 2640 | 1760 | |||||||
| Corolla | 30 | 15000 | 500 | 1500 | 15600 | 8.8 | 4400 | ||||||||||
| Highlander | 19 | 15000 | 789.5 | 2368.4 | 32145 | 8.8 | 6947 | ||||||||||
| Highlander Hybrid | 28 | 15000 | 535.7 | 1607.1 | 761.3 | 37490 | 7.0 | 8.8 | 4714 | 2233 |
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